Profiting from the Bank Bailouts:

Some people expect to get rich (read richer) off the backs of the taxpayers:

Some … former federal officials, like L. William Seidman, the first chairman of the R.T.C., are serving as advisers — sharing ideas with Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and the transition team for President-elect Barack Obama — even while they are separately directing investors or banks on how to best profit from this advice. (Eric Lipton and David D. Kirkpatrick, The New York Times)

You had to know that Sec. Paulson's rush to dump hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into bailouts for the very rich at the end of the Bush period was about something more than improving a failing economy that the same administration had done so much to destroy in the first place.

What is obvious to former R.T.C. officials is that, like the last go around, a great deal of money will be made by a select group of investors and business operators, particularly those with government contacts. The former government officials said in interviews that much of what is motivating them is a desire to help the nation recover from this latest stumble. But they acknowledge they intend to be among the winners who emerge.

“Fortunes will be made here, no doubt about it,” said Gary J. Silversmith, one of more than a dozen former R.T.C. officials interviewed who now are involved in enterprises seeking to profit from bank bailouts. (Eric Lipton and David D. Kirkpatrick, The New York Times)

Finally Someone Is Examining the Costs of Information Tech.:

Randall Stross reports on the pricing of sending texts messages from cell phones. The prices have doubled in the past few years while the amount of texting has skyrocketed. But no one seems to know what the actual cost to the providers is. The best estimate is a penny or less.

Let's face it. Providers of digital information of all sorts have been hiding their costs while pumping up prices all along, and with only four (4) providers in the U. S., you know they've been talking with each other. With a group that small, they don't even need to collude openly. They already know what each other are doing.

Now will someone please look at the cable companies and tie a knot in their monopolistic tales?

Just Say No:

Come on, young'ns, promise to remain virgins until you marry! (Translation: Promise not to practice birth control, 'cause you're gonna have sex anyway.) Studies show that promising not to be sexually active until after marriage has proven to be a collasal failure, not only because kids are having sex anyway, but also because the kids who make those promises are less likely to practice any form of birth control:

"Taking a pledge doesn't seem to make any difference at all in any sexual behavior," said Janet E. Rosenbaum of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whose report appears in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics. "But it does seem to make a difference in condom use and other forms of birth control that is quite striking." (Rob Stein, The Washington Post)